


Ugly Organs (How Lucky We Are)

by HoneyCorvid



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, emo monster platonic handholding, extremely mild canon-typical violence, falling asleep together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:14:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24258001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneyCorvid/pseuds/HoneyCorvid
Summary: “Why’re you looking at my hand like that,” she murmurs sleepily. “There something wrong?”“Oh—no, I’m sorry,” he says. “It was just...you know. There. Figure if you’re trying to sleep it’s probably better I stare at your hand than your face, right?”“Oh, I don’t know, it’s almost helpful at this point,” Daisy says sardonically. He feels her shrug, the gentle up and down of her shoulder achingly present against his own.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 13
Kudos: 123





	Ugly Organs (How Lucky We Are)

It’s been weeks, now, since they emerged from the coffin together, hand in hand; long enough for Daisy to regain some strength, and to hack off all the hair that had grown out filthy and wrong underground and refused to become clean no matter what she did with a hunting knife in a fit of impulse, and for Jon to wander into the breakroom immediately after and find a pile of matted blonde hair dyed brown by mud and a trembling not-quite-human standing over it.

  
Jon had agreed to help her clean it up; he’s not _extremely_ proficient with an electric razor, but he did all right, and at least it’s even now, back to being pale and startlingly soft where her head is resting against his shoulder. 

Everyone else has left, either headed home for the evening or off on some nonspecific errand (in Basira’s case; Jon pushes back against knowing what it is she’s actually doing.), which leaves Daisy and Jon together in the dusty quiet of the Archives. He doesn’t really remember how they wound up leaning against the wall together -- he gets kind of faraway when he’s going through papers and statements, but he remembers vaguely her wandering into the room, bare feet predator-silent against the ancient wood of the floor. She’d stared down at him for a moment before kicking one of his manila folders out of the way and flopping to the ground next to him with a huff, and now he’s pushed the whole pile away to deal with later.

He takes her hand. It’s warm and dry and calloused, and there’s a bit of grit stubbornly clinging beneath her fingernails. The part of him that knows these things knows there will _always_ be grit there, lingering beneath nails he wishes he didn’t know she dutifully files down from claws each morning. His chest aches, and it’s hard to determine a single cause. 

“Why’re you looking at my hand like that,” she murmurs sleepily. “There something wrong?”

“Oh—no, I’m sorry,” he says. “It was just...you know. There. Figure if you’re trying to sleep it’s probably better I stare at your hand than your face, right?”

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s almost helpful at this point,” Daisy says sardonically. He feels her shrug, the gentle up and down of her shoulder achingly present against his own. “Some kind of freaky bedtime ritual. Like— _hah—_ like I’m a parrot, ‘cept instead of a blanket making me think it’s time for sleep it’s a scrawny little monster staring into my soul.”

“I’m not _scrawny—“_

Daisy snorts, using her free hand to poke him in the place where a rib once sat. _“Yeah_ you are. Malnutrition poster boy, you. _For just mild nightmares a day, you can help keep a pretentious nerd from starving—_ “ 

She cuts off into a soft, rough little chuckle as Jon shoves her back with his shoulder, and he can’t help laughing as well. He hasn’t let go of her hand, and he doesn’t plan to, now; instead he winds their fingers together, squeezing softly. She presses her face into his shoulder and mutters something about him being _uncomfortably bony_ as she squeezes back.   
  


Later, when all is torn asunder, he finds himself wincing back from the swiping claw of something that may once have been a fox. That’s normal, as it goes, except the motion never lands, and when he lets himself see he knows that the fox is never going to hunt again because there’s always a bigger predator somewhere. 

There’s _always_ a bigger predator. Jon stumbles backwards three steps, every eye he has wide and fearful, and then— and then—

The lycanthrope huffs, butting her huge head gentle against his shoulder, and all at once he knows who this monster used to be. Gingerly, _so_ gingerly, he reaches up to stroke her blood-spattered ruff, and is almost startled by how her hair is still soft. He cards his fingers through it, letting them pause where the scar that named her still shows, confirmation enough that it’s who he knows it is. 

“Oh, Daisy,” he murmurs. She makes a low noise deep in her chest, and it makes what heart he’s got left shatter; he can still hear her _voice_ through the canine growl of it, can understand that what she’s trying to say is _friend._ He buries his face in her fur, tears stinging at his eyes.

“God, I missed you,” Jon admits quietly, and she laughs. It’s an awful sound, rough and pained and perfect, and he can’t help the hysterical sound that tears itself from his own throat at that. “Come on, Martin’s not far—we’ve got a place that’s more or less safe set up. There’s stuff to wash off with, at least.”

She nods, nudging his hand gently with her head as if to tell him to lead the way.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "ribs" by the crane wives, a very good song that does not exactly fit this fic but that ive been listening to a WHOLE LOT LATELY. anyway theyre best friends and i had to post this before jonny inevitably makes the whole pack thing violently non-canon find me at @honeycorvid on twitter
> 
> also sorry about the formatting i dont know how to fix it so yall have to deal with scrolly problems


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